The Braves have designated infielder Mike Aviles for assignment, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets. Atlanta also has activated catcher Tyler Flowers from the DL and placed fellow backstop A.J. Pierzynski there in his place with a hamstring injury.
[Related: Updated Braves Depth Chart]
Aviles was acquired just yesterday — along with minor league catcher Kade Scivicque — in the trade that sent shortstop Erick Aybar to the Tigers. Clearly, he was involved in that deal only to offset part of Aybar’s salary. Acquiring and then designating players is a tactic the Braves have utilized in several recent deals to facilitate financial exchanges.
The 35-year-old veteran had struggled rather notably this year, carrying only a .210/.258/.269 slash in his 181 plate appearances on the season. Aviles is a versatile defender and valued presence in the clubhouse, but he has never been a terribly productive hitter and his results at the plate have steadily dipped over the last three seasons.
Ozzie Albies
Dustin Peterson
So is this the way of saying AJ is done for the year?
I guess he’s conveniently gone down with an injury with a September 1st return time table.
Or did he actually pull his hamstring in last night’s game?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is fully recovered by the time he can return from the DL. wink, wink
Any of you Braves fans taken a drive by the new stadium site??
Unfortunately it is about 4 hours away from me. I generally see more high priced medical specialist in Atlanta than I get to see Braves games in person.
10 hours away unfortunately. But excited for my scheduled trip to Atlanta next July. Hoping they will be in town.
What’s the advantage of these trade-and-release deals instead of simply exchanging cash as other teams do? Less league scrutiny of a trade since it doesn’t involve cash?
The Braves basically “bought” the prospect to make it even, the 23 year old who was a 4th rounder in 2015
Similar to what they did for $9M with Touki Touissaint and Arroyo (I believe) from ARZ – a former 1st rd pick.
Took Aviles’ contract to get the better prospect.
Seeing the Braves get creative to land a catching prospect was a strong move. I’m not expecting Kade Alphabet-soup to become Mike Piazza or anything, but the Braves need to land a lottery ticket or two because the answer to the long term catching position is not in Atlanta’s system.
This wasn’t a horrible move as the Braves are saving salary by getting rid of Aybar and taking on Avilas contract. Plus they get a catching prospect. Whether he will ever amount to anything or not is up in the air but with Dansby Swanson being called up it was a great time to finall rid themselves of the disappointing Aybar they received in the awful Simba trade. It would be a better trade if Newcomb can come around and stop walking batters which he has been a lot better as of late.
Don’t know what happened to Aybar this year. He was once a cornerstone for the Angels, Sciocisia even had him batting in the 4 hole at times. He’ll be back on the bench as soon as Iglesias is back of the DL.